Blake’s The Book of Job and Brett Whiteley’s Alchemy

We are entering two weeks where the following two creations are going to be explored and contrasted. Blake’s Illustrations to the Book of Job are one of the most extraordinary sacred documents in which a poet/ artist reinterprets one of the most ancient and well-known classic religious texts along the lines of his own unique religious persuasion. Brett Whiteley’s Alchemy by contrast is one of the most well known sacred documents by a contemporary Australian artist in which his experience as a twentieth century individual is amplified and celebrated by recasting his personal experience through images of recent and ancient cultural and artistic history. These include Hieronymus Bosch,Vincent Van Gogh, William Blake,Patrick White and many others. Ironically Whiteley’s Alchemy was also a tragic foreshadowing of Whiteley’s own death a few years after the completion of this massive canvas.

Blog Topics for this week (in preparation for our visit to the

Illustrations to the Book of Job and to Alchemy :

Create an annotated guide to some of the best web resources to either of these art works.

Write a letter to either of these artists describing what you hope to discover when you see their works.

Create your own topic triggered by what you imagine these works are going to reveal.